500 Word Essay About Nickel & Dimed

Monique Clay
AP English Language and Composition
10 July 2013
500 Word EssayBarbara Ehrenreich’s non-fiction bestseller, Nickel and Dimed, is the story of an essay writer who went undercover as a low wage worker to find out how non-skilled workers make ends meet. The experiment took place in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, with the author finding a job and lodgings in each location. The experiment was to be held for one month in each location, working full time and living only off the amount of money earned in low-wage jobs. The goal was to determine whether or not the author could both live off the money earned and have enough money at the end of the month to pay the next month’s rent. The purpose of Ehrenreich’s book is simply to determine if she “could match income to expenses, as the truly poor attempt to do every day.” Working different jobs in restaurants, a hotel, a nursing home, a cleaning service, and at a major retailer Ehrenreich finds the truth – it is nearly impossible to match income and expense on wage income. Her research shows that a strong “work ethic” is often not enough to provide necessities like shelter, food, and transportation. For people who work in restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and other service jobs the pay is simply not enough to work your way up the ladder of success. Barbara undertakes life as a person that earns poverty-level wages. The book is a real eye opener to what you can actually do for six to seven dollars an hour. The theme of this book is, from my view, you never realize what you have until it is gone. People all across the United States of America live without some of our "necessities" because they can't afford much more than shelter and food. Barbara shows in this book that living on minimum wage is possible, but barely. My analysis of the theme in this book is very important for people to see and understand that the group of people who earn the bare minimum wage is probably what you wouldn't suspect. Most...

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

...Sarah Levy
Professor M.Marca
English 97
2 December 2008
Shame and Humiliation
Nickel and Dimed, written by Barbara Ehrenreich has been published in 2001 for the first time. This book explains and describes the condition of the working poor in United States in the 21st century. To write this book the author who is a well-known journalist at the New York Times decides to experience being a low-wage worker for a few months. She gives up her middle class life to become and live as a working poor. The author establishes a few rules at the beginning of her challenge such as not to go hungry or always having a car. But, except for those few exceptions she decides to go through the same life as her new coworkers. She starts her experience in Florida then she goes to Maine and finally to Minnesota. Therefore, Nickel and Dimed describes the experiment and the troubles Ehrenreich had to go through while she was a working poor. She particularly accentuates on how humiliated and how ashamed people are of being poor. Shame and humiliation are essential themes of this book are explained and described through different ways such as the fact that poor people are invisible or not respected in their jobs or not able to talk freely, or mistreated by their manager even if they are sick.
First of all, the author explains that the poor are invisible and how they feel about it. “Maids as an occupational group, are not...

...Research Essay: Nickel and Dimed
Looking at the state of low wage workers in America today, many are struggling to make ends meet and provide basic needs to themselves and their families. Is this a new situation or just a necessary part of the overall American economic structure? In her book, “Nickel and Dimed” (2001), Barbara Ehrenreich steps out of her comfortable, middle class existence to find out how the people working in the lowest rung of America’s economy are getting by. Using her sarcasm, dry wit, and no-nonsense storytelling style, makes her main claim that in the economy of today, low wage workers are not anywhere near making it, let alone moving up the socio-economic ladder. This claim is hotly debated in every possible theater, from the political campaign trail, in the press, and at the local community college campus. Ehrenreich also states that there are several accompanying causes that are also at play, that high housing costs, access to basic health care, and the lack of a basic “living wage” contribute to a “hidden-cost” economy, and that they are working against people in low wage jobs. There are numerous arguments that have been presented that both support and refute Ehrenreich’s claims, mainly examining the validity of her examples, support information, and her execution of the experiment. Discussion of these different points of view and analysis will provoke further healthy...

...NICKEL AND DIMED BOOK REPORT
Barbara Ehrenreich is a journalist who wrote the book Nickel and Dimed. She goes undercover to see how it feels to work for $6 to $7 an hour. She leaves her regular life to explore the experiences of a minimum wage worker. Ehrenreich travels to Florida, Maine, and Minnesota, looking for jobs and places to live on a minimum wage salary. At one point in time, she had to work two jobs to makes ends meet. As she worked all these jobs, she discovered many problems in the social world. The things she went through were not the types of situations that she usually experienced. She wasn't used to living and working environments of the poor. She had to deal with the different personalities and customs of her co-workers, their living arrangement, and the management hierarchy in each job. She worked as a waitress at two different restaurants, as a maid service cleaning houses, and as a dietary aide at a nursing home.
Ehrenreich didn't want to be a waitress any more than some waitresses, but she did it for her research. Ehrenreich once stated that, "Waitres sing is also something I'd like to avoid, because I remember it leaving me bone-tired when I was eighteen." (13). Her first job was at Hearthside, a restaurant in Key West, Florida. She was hired as a waitress, starting at $2.43 plus tips. She worked the afternoon shift. Hearthside was being managed by a West Indian man by name of Phillip. The...

...﻿Madison Held
Mr. Clydesdale
Nickel and Dimed
12/8/14
Introduction
In the beginning of Nickle and Dimed, the main character and author, Barbara Ehrenreich establishes regulations and limits on how close she is actually willing to get to poverty. Her first rule is she could not (in her job hunt) “fall back on any skills derived from any education or usual work (Pg 4).” Rule number two is that she must accept the highest paying job that is offered to her, and she must work as hard as she can to keep that job. Her final rule, rule number three, Barbara must take the lowest priced housings she can find that provides sufficient privacy and safety. By the end of this story however at one point, all these rules were broken.
To limit herself on how close she is actually getting to real poverty for her experiment, she also sets some boundaries. The first boundary is that she will always have a car (Pg 5). She will never allow herself to become homeless, and she will never go hungry. These boundaries aren’t realistic because obviously people go hungry every day. Some people, go through a part in their life where they don’t have a house to live in, therefor they are homeless. These are the harsh realities of life that thousands of people have to face every day.
Guidelines I would establish for myself would be that I am never going to go hungry. I always get a car, and my final boundary would be that I have an emergency credit...

..."Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America."
by: Barbara Ehrenreich
Barbara Ehrenreich's, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, is a book that strives to change the way America perceives its working poor. Achieving the American Dream can be difficult, if not impossible for many people with stumbling blocks and obstacles along the way as portrayed in Nickel and Dimed, due to the cost of living in contrast to the wage of low or middle class earners.
Nickel and Dimed is essentially a journal of the time spent by the author, with her identity and PhD concealed, working in order to discover whether she could support a basic life style from earning minimum wage. This book shows how things such as stress in the work place, lack of proper benefits, cost of housing and how what was merely an experiment for Ehrenreich, is a real detriment for many others. In her experiment Ehrenreich finds cheap housing and works various minimum wage jobs paying between $6-$7 an hour all while assessing her findings. In working as a waitress in Florida, a maid in Maine, and a sales clerk in Minnesota, Ehrenreich soon discovers that even the "lowliest" of occupations require exhausting and strenuous efforts rewarded by a wage that barely covers living expenses and everyday costs.
As a native resident to Florida, Ehrenreich doesn't venture...

...Nickel and Dimed
1) According to Ehrenreich, people who work jobs that are subsidized almost entirely by tips should be either paid more to begin with or offered more services such as housing and food like European countries do. For example, the typical 10% tip is considered borderline excessive at table service restaurants because waiters and waitresses are already paid substantially. Also, it is common especially in Mediterranean countries for the 10-15% service charge to already be included in the prices displayed on the menu. As it becomes harder for someone to sustain a comfortable lifestyle off of tipping in America, this may be something the government will look into adopting.
2) Nickel and Dimed wouldn’t have been too different if it had taken place in our community. (Considering the bare minimum of anything in Peotone, I’m including nearby towns.) Job opportunities are extremely limited, but similar with the exception of maid services. Public transit is scare and most things are not within walking distance posing a problem as far as getting from point A to B. Housing is very minimal in Peotone and can get pretty expensive, but security is great and the area is relatively noise free. However, the struggles encountered by living in poverty are pretty much the same everywhere as discovered by Ehrenreich.
3) Ehenreich routinely refers to food as “fuel” because when trying to eat as cheap as possible just to...

...of endless opportunities? People from all over the world come to the US in high hopes of becoming rich with minimal efforts. Sadly, this is not the case. After reading Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich, I have a new outlook on individuals struggling to get by on low wage paying jobs in America. Barbara travels to Florida, Maine, and Minnesota to "investigate" life as low wage worker. She plays a different role in each of these three states to experience the true life of these workers. She works at four different low paying jobs as a waitress, housekeeper at a hotel, house cleaner and a Wal-Mart associate. In the course of three months she finds insight in life with minimum wage. Reading this novel has truly had an impact on me and the way millions of people within America truly live. As an upper middle class citizen I don't experience these struggles Barbara experienced in investigating different types of low wage lifestyles. It has really opened up my eyes to the way people live and makes me feel extremely privileged.
The first place Barbara embarks on in starting her new low-wage life is Key West, Florida. She manages to find a waitresing job at a place called Hearthside. There she earns $2.43 an hour plus tips. During this investigation she used $500 a month for rent and still wants to have $400-$500 left over for food and gas. She gets by at this waitressing job but comes across a number of interesting...

...homemaker reentering the workforce after many years.” In a way, this is true, which is why I find it clever.
Page 10: Although I only read the introduction chapter in this novel, I really like the style and tone of Ehrenreich’s writing. She is very entertaining, such as when she states, “I just figured that a story about waiting for buses would not be very interesting to read.”
Also, I was very confused while reading this introduction because I didn’t completely understand what the task Ehrenreich was trying to achieve was; however, I have concluded that her aim is simply to see if she can match income to expenses, just like the poor attempt to do every day.
Serving in Florida
Page 12: After I learned that Ehrenreich bought an apartment for only $500, I began to feel really grateful for the housing I live in. Every person’s dream is to live in a huge mansion, and when I was growing up I always wanted a bigger house. Now that I realize how small some people’s houses are, I really feel selfish about how I always used to complain about my house. I took so much for granted, and it’s nice to see how lucky I really am.
Page 15: “I had been vain enough to worry about coming across as too educated for the jobs I sought…” If she were “too educated” then why would people not want to hire her? She later said that she waited for three days but never heard back from the jobs she was applying for.
Page 16:...